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A web flavored Chinese lesson

First, a little vocabulary:

"Palm Pre" - which sounds like "胖皮" - reads "fat and mischevious."
"Apple" - which sounds like "阿婆" - reads "grandma."

Next, a little metaphor:

In Chinese forums, each thread is considered an upside-down high-rise with each post being an individual apartment in the building. New posters refer to old ones as upstairs neighbors, which is much more endearing than "previous poster." If yours was the 57th post in a thread, others may refer to you as "the guy on the 57th floor." Thread starters are also referred to as building owners in this regard.

See, the Chinese language can be sophisticated and cute.

Posted April 16, 2009
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Poor but not retarded


 
Nothing like a good ad parody to brighten up the day.

Posted April 14, 2009
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Everything's amazing, nobody's happy

I'm somewhat late in catching this wonderful video, but am nonetheless very thankful for the perspective it offers.

Expectations always rise faster than standards. Though I don't think that'll ever change, the least we can do is show some appreciation for how far we've come as we strive to improve our standards further.

Posted April 12, 2009
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Dreamers and scammers

For novelty reasons, I had been hanging on to all the scam notices I've received since getting incorporated. You know, the ones that pretend to originate from some official "compliance division" of the government requiring you to send a check because they managed to photochop a fake seal onto a bureaucratic-looking form. Today I decided they were a waste of space and finally tossed 'em.
 
It is extremely unfortunate that entrepreneurs get preyed on like so, and worse that these ploys probably have a good-enough ROI for the scammers to perpetuate them. A hundred bucks may not be a life or death sum of money, but it quickly snowballs out of control. If I had foolishly paid all those notices, my startup would be out over a grand in a just a few short months. That's cold, hard cash that could've gone towards product development, several hours of legal advice, or at least a lot of runway-extending ramen noodles and value meals (take your pick).
 
"A fool and his money are soon parted," yes, but entrepreneurs getting scammed actually hurts all of us. The fewest dollars generate the most value in the earliest days of a startup, and I wonder how many products and services have been stunted due to this madness, perhaps to the point of not even seeing the light of day.
 
Staying vigilant and talking about it protects us all - whether that means we consult a friend or a lawyer. Even if you have neither, there's always the trusty Google Search to shed a little light on the situation. I'd rather we see the better products and services today's startups are building, and more of them at that.

Posted April 11, 2009
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Never, ever cede control of your message


...as being clever can and will backfire.

via Adrants

Posted April 10, 2009
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It's so easy, it sucks

The barrier to entry for content creation has been lowered so drastically over the past few years that it seems just about anyone can hop online and create content. As long as you have an email address, you can easily sign up for online accounts that will allow you to share text, pictures, audio, video, whatever. Much of the web is still focused getting people to participate in such a way that generally means we have to embrace the crap with the cool. 


As great as participation is, I'm a firm believer in the direct correlation between how easy it is to generate content and how much that content will suck. There's so much noise, clutter, and garbage sucking away bits of our lives that it seems content is adding less and less value (think "make me unsee that!"). And the people who try to game the system when they just don't get it (read: clueless advertisers) certainly don't help when they hop along this internet ride 'cause everyone's doing it.

The less jaded perspective is that all this trash sure makes for a good opportunity. Though what we share may not always be worthwhile to everyone (value is in the eye of the beholder), it seems that standards are lowering quickly enough for us to stand out with some honest effort and dedication. Good luck if that's you and may you never surrender that fight.

Posted April 9, 2009
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The third coming

TypePad, where I started my first real blog, had some neat features but didn't seem to be a quick enough outlet for short thoughts.
 
iWeb, while quick and easy, failed me miserably when my hard drive crashed and I wasn't able to redownload any of my posted content.
 
Posterous seems like it's got a winning formula of being simple, fast, and extensible. I don't plan on giving up blogging - hopefully third time's the charm!

Posted April 6, 2009
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